The Puigs, those Catalan billionaires friends of the Kings who have perfumed our lives

The Puig Group will begin trading on the stock market in early May. The perfume and fashion giant is one of the six most important multinationals in the world in the beauty sector. Mariano Puig Planas He died in 2021, at the age of 94, and his family and heirs, in charge of the company that bears his last name, will obtain between 2,500 and 3,000 million euros from the market, depending on the starting price of the shares. A succulent amount with which to finance the promising future of the company that owns brands such as Paco Rabanne, Nina Ricci or Carolina Herreraso liked by fashion icons of the level of the Queen Letizia.

The Catalan group (which may approach a valuation of 10 billion euros) is divided into 14 cousins ​​who in turn belong to four branches of the Puig family. The saga will maintain absolute control of a company that sold 4.3 billion euros in 2023, a turnover that grows at a rate close to 20% annually.

The origin of the empire takes us to 1914. 110 years ago, Antonio Puig Castelló, the founder, returned to Barcelona after having studied in England. His father was able to make a fortune selling potatoes and was able to pay for the young man to attend a good Jesuit school in London.

He learned a lot and well and began to import French D’Orsay perfumes. In 1922 he launched Milady, the first lipstick manufactured in Spain. Antonio married Maria Guasch, a rich heiress, and they had four sons and a daughter. The men, Antonio, Mariano, José María and Enrique, the company’s areas were distributed since 1950, in the midst of the dictatorship. Before, in the middle of the post-war period, the father managed to produce fragrances from Spanish products due to the difficulty of importing just after the Civil War.

In 1940 they launched their Puig Lavender Water and eight years later came L’Air du Temps by Nina Ricci. Later, at the dawn of the 60s, they made the leap to the United States and later Mariano Puig himself managed to become the exclusive importer for Spain of Max Factor.

Then came Agua Brava (1968), Azur de Puig (1969), or the contract with Paco Rabanne to launch Calandre before staying with the brand. “If I am Paco Rabanne it is thanks to Mariano Puig“, confessed the Basque designer who became a French national. Puig was almost a second father to Rabanne after his father was executed by firing squad in the Civil War.

Towards the end of the 80s they launched the first Carolina Herrera perfume. And in the 90s they bought Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten and Charlotte Tilbury and obtained licenses from Christian Louboutin, Prada and Cosme des Garçons.

The Puigs, who own the best mansions on the Costa Brava and the most expensive areas of Barcelona, ​​are little or not at all given to fame. Mariano and his brother Enrique were close friends of the Bourbons as a result of their years of sponsorship of the Copa del Rey de Vela in Mallorca. Marcone of Mariano’s five children, is the executive president and although he does not usually appear in public, his closeness and friendship with both Felipe VI with Letizia. On first Manuelthe only son of Antonio Puig, occupies the vice presidency of the company that goes public on May 3 if the initially planned date is not changed.